Summary
In this vachana, Basavanna exposes the error of misdirected seeking. People ask for everything, yet forget to ask for the One.
The mortal beings of this world seek many things. They ask for needs, gains, protections, and fulfillments, but they forget the one thing that gives meaning to all seeking.
Basavanna turns the whole vachana into a direct lament before Kudalasangama Deva: “They forgot my one asking.” The teaching is clear: to seek many things while forgetting Kudalasangama Deva is to miss the heart of the path.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
The first image is asking for everything. It shows the restless movement of human desire. The seeker asks for one thing after another, but the asking remains scattered.
The forgotten “one” is the central image. It is not one more object among many. It is the one essential seeking: Kudalasangama Deva Himself.
The phrase “mortal world” deepens the teaching. Human life is brief, yet the mind fills it with countless requests. Mortality should make the seeker turn toward what is essential, but instead it often multiplies distraction.
Basavanna’s grief is therefore precise. The problem is not that people ask; the problem is that they forget what must be asked above all else.
The imagery is simple, but severe. To ask for everything and forget the One is to gain fragments while losing the source.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, the seeker must learn to gather desire into one direction. Practice weakens when the mind asks for many secondary things while forgetting the Linga.
This vachana calls the Anga back from dispersion. The issue is not merely outward desire, but the loss of inward orientation.
The One is the living center of practice. Without that center, ritual, effort, and longing can become scattered movements.
Lingayoga matures when asking itself becomes purified. The seeker no longer asks for many fragments, but turns wholly toward Kudalasangama Deva.
Editorial Commentary
This vachana should be read as a correction of scattered seeking. Basavanna does not condemn human need; he shows the tragedy of forgetting the essential.
The teaching is direct: ask for the One, or all other asking remains incomplete.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Vachana 934 — The Nameless One at the Threshold
Vachana 934 shows Basavanna standing at the threshold, emptied of self-claim and bearing only the Name of Kudalasangama Deva. Vachana 938 continues this movement by showing that the true seeker must not ask for everything while forgetting the One.
Advancing Vachana
Maheshwara Vachana 995 — The Company of the Sharana as Life Itself
Vachana 938 teaches that all seeking must be gathered into the one essential asking for Kudalasangama Deva. Maheshwara Vachana 995 advances this into seamless surrender, where the seeker no longer moves between many requests and one remembrance. What is corrected here as forgetting the One becomes, in the next movement, surrender without division.
